Iowa Keeps Creating: Digital Stage

Benjamin Handler | Ghost Creek

“Filmmaking started as a creative outlet for me at a time when I really needed an escape. I made little videos (I wouldn’t call them films) with my roommates’ $99 flip camera. I’ve always been passionate about music, and started filming bands shortly thereafter. My interests have ran parallel with the Englert Theatre for as long as I’ve been into film, so getting the chance to make a film alongside the Englert Theatre, specifically Mission Creek, has been a dream come true for me.”

Mission Creek’s film ‘Ghost Creek’ follows one individual, Awira, as she navigates a life that looks so different than it used to. The film is a reflection on 2020 through her eyes. Awira faces the existential pain we’ve all been presented with. She oscillates between being overwhelmed by it, and a more colorful coping mechanism; something akin to a dream. This film represents the makeshift balance Awira has to strike just to get through her day, and to hope for a brighter tomorrow. Mission Creek is presented by the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa. 

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Iowa Composers Forum | James Romig: Palindragram

“This video performance, by flautist John McMurtery, of Palindragram by ICF member James Romig shows mirrored balance in musical form by reversing direction at its midpoint and returning to its start. The video will appear on our Digital Summer Festival of New Music. Romig is from Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa. The title is a combination of the words palindrome and anagram.”

The Iowa Composers Forum (ICF) was founded in March of 1987 in Des Moines by seven composers who wished to create an environment for the performance and dissemination of music composed by Iowans. The ICF has presented more than 100 concerts and tour recitals of works by member composers. These concerts have featured the performances of over 800 works of new music, including works by student composers from the elementary, middle, high school and collegiate level. The ICF has commissioned many new works, both unilaterally and in partnership with other organizations such as the Iowa Music Teachers Association and the Iowa Choral Directors Association. The ICF sponsors its own annual student composition competition, open to students studying at the middle school, high school and collegiate levels.

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Joshua Dumas and Fannie Hungerford |  Sound of Bee, Form of Ghost

“A 16 minute digital video, partially inspired by the Catuṣaṣṭhi Yogini Namo Namamala, a mantra naming 64 yoginis; the 64 movement gestures are animated and glitched into an abstract cinematic sequence, with original music and poetic voice-over. 

The piece aligns with balance in its exploration of goddesses as shape shifting beings - not only spiritual, but also human. It aims to examine and explore the ways we balance the sacred and the profane, as well as the various human qualities within ourselves. Sometimes we are eating ghosts, and at other times, the ghosts are eating us.”

Fannie Hungerford and Joshua Dumas met in Chicago building music and dance theatre.  There, they formed The Summer is for Fireflies, a street performance group, and have made two dance films in Iowa City.  Sound of Bee, Form of Ghost is their most recent work. Joshua is a new media artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Fannie is a creator, performer, and yoga teacher based in Iowa City, IA.  

Get Social: Instagram: @fannie_hungerford & @fieldguide1
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